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City by the Bay Painted Black and Orange to Honor Giants

SAN FRANCISCO — On Halloween in San Francisco, the entire city dressed up as Giants fans. The newly minted championship baseball team, three days off completing its World Series sweep of the Detroit Tigers, paraded past more than one million fans en route to a rally that filled Civic Center Plaza well past overflowing.

In a season in which the unexpected became the norm — from powering by the Dodgers despite Los Angeles’s blockbuster midseason trades, to overcoming Cincinnati and St. Louis in playoff series that seemed all but lost, to dominating a Detroit team that had been widely favored in the World Series — the Giants’ championship parade actually offered a modicum of normalcy.

That is, if a million screaming fans in orange and black can be considered normal.

Packed up to 50 deep along the Market Street corridor from the Ferry Building to City Hall, about two miles away, this show of force by Giants fans was no less impressive than the last time such a party was thrown — after the team’s equally surprising 2010 championship. Now, like then, fans crowded atop bus shelters, stood shoulder to shoulder on newspaper vending boxes, hung from traffic lights and filled window panes in every office building.

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Fans lined the streets of San Francisco for the Giants' parade.Credit
Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Over it all fluttered a steady stream of orange and black confetti, shot from cannons stationed intermittently along the route.

“This parade is actually a little sweeter than the one two years ago,” said pitcher Tim Lincecum, riding, as were his teammates, in the back of a luxury convertible. “Now that I know what to expect, I was more excited for it and able to soak it in a little bit more.”

“I remember the parade they threw us when we moved out here in 1958,” Willie Mays said. “This town has a long history of appreciating its baseball teams.”

Appreciate they did. As the Giants rolled slowly through the throngs, the crowd’s energy surged with each passing car. Manager Bruce Bochy led the contingent in a Rolls-Royce, championship trophy raised high. At the rear of the group, Pablo Sandoval held his own trophy — the World Series Most Valuable Player award.

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Giants closer Sergio Romo before exiting his car to hop, skip and exult down Market Street.Credit
Jim Wilson/The New York Times

In between, Giants players soaked in the adoration. Brandon Crawford, the team’s shortstop, saw a sign asking for his hand in marriage, and laughed. Hunter Pence, newly shaved, consistently tried to pump up the volume, working the crowd like a rock star. Sergio Romo eschewed his vehicle entirely, opting instead to hop, skip and exult down Market Street, bounding with a smile from one side to the other as fans screamed in awe. (The message on Romo’s T-shirt, “I just look illegal.”)

The parade route ended at a platform outside City Hall, at which the team and dozens of officials gathered in front of a crowd that spilled well beyond the boundaries of Civic Center Plaza.

To acknowledge that San Francisco was unable to see its team clinch the championship in person, the broadcaster Dave Flemming re-created his call for the final out of Game 4 in an effort to allow the fans to respond in real time. They did not disappoint.

The sentiments from the stage hewed primarily toward civic pride, with a smattering of boasting tossed in for good measure.

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The World Series M.V.P. Pablo Sandoval enjoying the parade.Credit
Jim Wilson/The New York Times

“Detroit, with all due respect, didn’t know what it was in for,” General Manager Brian Sabean said.

“We went to Cincinnati, and they weren’t as loud as you,” pitcher Ryan Vogelsong told the crowd. “We went to St. Louis, and they weren’t as loud as you. And frankly, Detroit’s fans weren’t nearly as loud as you.”

Numerous players shared sentiments with the crowd, with a varying range of emotion.

The often-maligned pitcher Barry Zito candidly stated that he and Vogelsong had “been through a couple different states of hell” in trying to succeed as major leaguers. “The lows have been very low,” he added, “but today, this is the highest of the high. It is such a blessing to be up here.”

Ultimately, the turnout proved to show that San Francisco had, in the words of the broadcaster Mike Krukow, become a city of expectation with its baseball team. The Giants have discovered a winning formula, which helped them, after waiting 56 years for one championship, to wait only two for the next.

“This is nice,” left fielder Gregor Blanco said as he waited for the parade to begin. “I could get used to this.”

A version of this article appears in print on November 1, 2012, on page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: City by the Bay Painted Black and Orange to Honor Giants. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe